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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Keeping an eye on the neighbors

I've gotten in the habit of taking photographs almost every day, but most days I don't even leave my house. Keeping the photos from being repetitious is challenging, to say the least, so that's where my neighbors' yards come in handy. Sometimes I can stand in my own backyard and see things over (and through) the fence that are photo worthy. Here are a few recent shots:

The first two photos show the efforts of my neighbor up front, the mother of the family who lives across the carport from me. Her green thumb is responsible for the plants and flowers that greet my visitors, as well as hers, and I'm grateful that she has a knack for gardening.

The neighbor on my left owns this precious little dog, Buddy, who runs the fence line with Levi almost every day. This neighbor, too, is a wonderful gardener, one who grows fruits and vegetables as well as a few flowers. Those beautiful pear tree photos I showed you a while back? That tree is hers.

The neighbor behind me has trees, trees and more trees, and I enjoy every one of them. This one, with its leaning trunk, is my favorite, especially when the early morning sun lights up its tender new leaves.

This photo was also taken through the back fence. The geese don't live there, but they've been frequent visitors over the past couple of months.

The neighbor on my right does no more gardening than I do (none), but my eyes and my camera lens are drawn to some of the manmade things I see over there. This wind chime hangs in her carport:

And this stately lion guards her driveway:

I've never paid too much attention to this house two doors down, but the way the sun was shining on it today made me take a closer look.

The colors were so bright and cheerful that I thought you might enjoy them, too, and that's how easily this blog post was born.

6 comments:

Holly, I'm not pointing my camera lens at any one thing for more than a few seconds, and if my neighbors are outside, I don't aim in their direction at all. Also, it isn't as if I'm taking photos through a knothole in a wooden privacy fence. Everything in these pictures is right out in the open, clearly visible -- with or without a zoom lens -- to anyone who looks in the right direction.

About Me

My Other Blogs

On the Internet to Find the Others

"Admit it. You aren't like them. You're not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the 'normal people' as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like 'Have a nice day' and 'Weather's awful today, eh?', you yearn inside to say forbidden things like 'Tell me something that makes you cry' or 'What do you think deja vu is for?' Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others..."

--Timothy Leary

My Babies

Levi

Gimpy

Kadi: Jun 1997-Mar 2011

Butch: Mar 1998-Feb 2012

The Introvert

She cared for those trinkets as if they were cherished heirlooms, rarely displaying them in public. She stored them in protective velvet sacks, drawing them out only when she was alone or in the company of those she trusted to understand why the simple objects mattered. And as careful as she was to protect the trinkets, so she was cautious about sharing her words, and for the same reasons.